Who both killed. — A tremendous invective against the Jews, the purpose of which is (1) to show the deep sympathy of St. Paul with the persecuted Thessalonians, and his indignation against the persecutors; (2) to make them see still more deeply the value of their faith by the efforts made to keep it from them. Objection is often made to St. John’s Gospel on the ground that no born Jew could have written of “the Jews” in the bitter way so common in that book, or viewed them so completely as a separate body from himself. This passage, in an indubitable epistle of “a Hebrew of the Hebrews.” seems a satisfactory answer. The memories of St. Stephen’s speech (Acts 7:52) seem to be waking in the mind of him who was once a persecuting Jew himself.
Have persecuted. — Take the marginal version, “chased” (not “have chased”) “us violently out of Thessalonica.”
They please not God — (though to serve and please Him was the special purpose for which the nation was set apart,) “and are at cross purposes with all mankind.” The historian Tacitus gives, as a characteristic of the race, “an attitude of hostility and hatred towards all others.” Juvenal makes the same accusation.